Dirty Little Secrets
by Graciebird
Summary: Sara and Grissom have a secret, and Nick and Catherine suspect. GSR fluff.


Author's Note: Sorry, I got inspired for this and wrote it instead of updating my other fic. Oh well, I hope that you enjoy!

Nick waved Catherine down as she headed to the break room at the end of shift.

"Hey Cath, will you come here a minute?"

"Sure, Nicky. Anything you need help with?"

"Yeah, there are some pictures I'd like you to take a look at. They're sitting on the counter over there."

Catherine made her way over to the counter and picked up the envelope that contained the picture. She began to look at them, flipping through faster and faster, an incredulous look on her face.

"Nick, how did you…where…are these of who I think they are?"

Nick had made his way across the room and was now standing directly behind Catherine. "Yep, those are of Grissom, Sara, and a child. I'm sure you also noticed the matching rings on Grissom and Sara's fingers."

"How on earth did you get these?"

"Well, there's this little park in a residential area of the city. I don't normally venture out there, but this one has a cart that sells the best hot dogs you've ever tasted. Yesterday I developed a craving for them, so I stopped by after you and I got done with that double. I was just waiting for my dog when I caught sight of an adorable little girl. She really was precious. I watched her, and soon enough she headed right for Sara.

"Luckily, I still had my personal digital camera in my pocket, from showing you those pictures of my sister's wedding. I sat down on a bench and watched them for awhile. Don't you think the one of Sara and the little girl on the slide is hilarious? I think it's the first real smile I've seen on Sara in years. And the one of Grissom with her on his shoulders? Classic. They're naturals at parenting."

Catherine finally remembered to pick her jaw up off of the floor. "Wait, you're telling me that they are the parents?"

"Look at the pictures again, Cath, and tell me what you see."

Catherine picked up the pictures and thumbed through until she found one of all three, with Grissom and Sara on either side of the little girl, holding her hands.

"The girl appears to be around five or so. She has brown wavy hair and blue eyes, and she's skinny as a beanpole. Wait, hasn't Sara been here for six years? And looking at the way they hold her hands, they're comfortable around her. Who would have thought Grissom would ever be comfortable around children? And remember Sara on the Collins case, when she had to watch little Brenda? She was clueless."

"Well, I guess it all changes when they're your own."

"You can say that again. I wasn't much of a kid person until I had Lindsay. That changed everything."

"What are we going to do about this?" asked Nick.

"We're going to do the only thing we can do, Nick. They obviously don't want us to know that they're married and have a child. From the looks of it, they've been concealing this secret for several years. We'll let them come to us and tell us. And if they don't by Wednesday, then we'll confront them."

"But today is Monday, and they are both on vacation until Wednesday."

"Then I guess we'll just have to confront them," said Catherine with an all too familiar gleam in her eye.

"Laney, what was that noise?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to" came a small voice from the next room. Sara sighed and ran into the next room to investigate. She found Grissom's butterfly collection strewn across the floor with Laney in the middle. She also saw a swivel chair next to the shelf it had been housed on.

"Laney, how many times have I told you that you are not supposed to stand on swivel chairs, because things like this happen?"

"Maybe you should tell me again" said Laney matter-of-factly. Instead of getting upset, Sara began picking up the butterflies. None of them were broken, so chances were that Grissom would never notice.

"It's a thing called physics that makes a swivel chair different from other chairs…"

When Grissom got home an hour later, he found Laney curled up in Sara's lap while Sara read her a story. He smiled at the sight. He still wasn't used to coming home and finding his wife there, much less a child. Laney was only a temporary installment to their family. She would be returning to her family at the end of the week, but until then it was fun to pretend that she was theirs.

"Uncle Gil, Uncle Gil, guess what!" Laney shrieked as she flew off of Sara's lap and wrapped herself around Grissom's leg. "Aunt Sara said that today we can go see the horsies! Can you believe it? I've always wanted to ride one, but Mommy never let me. And now I get to!"

"Sara, are you sure that's a wise thing to do, since her mother won't let her?" asked Grissom as he untangled Laney from his leg and threw her in the air.

"Don't be ridiculous, Gil. They aren't horses, they're only ponies. And trust me; Danny would want Laney to experience this. He loved to ride horses when we were younger. It's not my fault that Patricia is a stick-in-the-mud."

Grissom put his hands over Laney's ears so she couldn't hear the conversation. "Fine, we'll go, but they had better be small ponies. She's only five."

Sara flashed a radiant smile and handed the brochure to Grissom. It advertised child themed pony rides and nature lessons. "See, Gil? It's perfectly safe and educational fun. Laney will love it."

Later that afternoon Sara and Grissom were watching Laney ride around a ring on her pony. To Gil's delight and Sara's secret disappointment, the ponies were too small for full grown adults such as her and Grissom to ride. Every time Laney would come to their side of the ring she would wave.

Gil stood behind Sara with his arms wrapped around her waist. "So this is what it's like to be a parent," he whispered in her ear. The scent of her shampoo still enthralled him, and the smile she flashed him let him know that he was the luckiest man in the world.

"Uncle Gil, Uncle Gil, did you get a picture of me on Dusty yet?" Gil smiled and took another picture of Laney on the pony, this time capturing her as she took the complimentary cowboy hat off of her head and raised it in the air. She was fearless, just like Sara. Most children would have been hanging on for dear life their first time on a pony, but Laney wanted to make the pony go faster and faster.

On Tuesday Gil and Sara took Laney to the zoo. It turned out to be an all day trip, because every time they saw a new animal Laney would make Gil read the entire placard outside the exhibit. Gil happily complied, and even threw in extra bits of information that he knew. Sara doubted that Laney understood most of what Gil said, but every time he read a placard he would hoist her up onto his shoulders so that she could see it too.

When Wednesday night came around the Grissoms had a babysitter stay with Laney while they went in to work.

Catherine was waiting in the break room for Sara and Grissom, her war face firmly in place. Sara and Grissom had come in separate cars, as always. Grissom arrived first and headed straight for his office, while Sara made her way to the break room via the locker room.

Catherine had her back to the door as she stirred her coffee.

"Hey Cath," said Sara as she casually made her way over to the coffee maker.

"Hi Sara. How are you these days?"

Sara looked at Catherine with a confused look on her face. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

Catherine smiled innocently (well, as innocently as an ex-stripper can) at Sara. "We haven't really talked lately. I was just wondering how things were going with you. And you actually took a vacation this past week."

Sara raised an eyebrow. Could Catherine have an idea? Surely not. "I've just been doing some stuff at home that needs tending to. All of the doubles we pull make it hard for me to be there to let workmen in, etc."

"How about you and I go out for breakfast after shift? It'll be fun, just the girls. We can even gossip about the guys."

Sara's mouth dropped open. Where was Catherine, and who was this imposter in her body? They had never been especially close, especially since the Ecklie/Svetlana incident a couple of years ago.

"I don't think I can make it. I have stuff to do at home."

"Sara, nothing at home is as important as us getting together for breakfast. I am not taking no for an answer. You are coming. Meet me in the parking lot at the end of shift."

Sara sank into one of the chairs and looked helplessly into space.

Meanwhile, Nick had cornered Grissom in his office.

"Hey Gris, can I talk to you?"

"Yes, Nick, can I help you?" asked Grissom as he looked up from paperwork.

"Well, I have some case notes on bugs that I'd like you to look over."

"Ok, where are they?"

"I left them at home," said Nick, trying hard to pretend he had forgotten them, "I'll tell you what; I'll meet you at the diner after shift. I'll treat you to breakfast, and you can look over my notes."

"But-"

"Thanks Grissom!" said Nick as he left the office.

Sara and Catherine arrived at the diner in the middle of the morning rush. They got the last table that was open before a wait began. The waitress had just taken their drink orders when Nick and Grissom entered.

"Nick, over here," called Catherine.

"I thought we were going to have breakfast without the guys," said Sara.

"Come on, Sara, we can have a girl breakfast any time. You don't want Nicky and Gris to wait, do you?"

Nick led Grissom over to the booth and slid in beside Catherine. Sara scooted to the far side of the booth as Grissom sat down next to her. Her heart started to beat faster, just from being in his company. The waitress put the drinks on the table, and as she tried to take hers without touching Grissom, Sara succeeded in spilling her coffee all over the table.

"I'm so sorry, Gris," she said as she shoved her purse across the table in her haste to get some napkins.

Catherine grabbed the purse to save it from falling, and as she did, Sara's wallet fell out. It wasn't zipped, and when Catherine picked it up it flipped open to reveal the face of a little girl.

"Sara, Gil, care to explain this?" asked Catherine as she held up the picture.

Sara glanced at Grissom and found her own wary gaze reflected back at her.

"Well, you see," right as Sara started talking she felt Grissom's hand press down on hers. She immediately shut up.

"That's a child" said Grissom matter-of-factly.

Catherine and Nick exchanged glances, and Nick spoke up.

"We know that. I saw you with that child a couple of days ago, at the park. You appeared to be having a good time. If I didn't know any better, I'd say…"

Sara paled visibly and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Grissom didn't move at all; he knew that Catherine would have to say her piece now.

"Nicky and I have been thinking, and it has occurred to us that Sara has been in Las Vegas for six years. You two knew each other before she came, and were obviously attracted to each other. And this child appears to be around five or so. You were wearing wedding rings in the pictures Nicky took-" Catherine stopped when she realized that she had revealed too much.

"You were spying on us? You took pictures of us? Why didn't you just go ahead and get a warrant for our house, so you could search that too?" Sara was incredibly angry, and didn't know what she would have done had Grissom not taken her hand and held it comfortingly. Catherine, of course, had picked up on Sara's little slip.

"You're living together? Gil, I know that you don't care about office politics, but I think that you should know what Ecklie will do if he finds out."

"Catherine," said Grissom calmly as took a sip of Sara's refilled coffee, "it is perfectly acceptable for Sara to live with me. We're married. Didn't you and Eddie live together when you were married?"

Catherine and Nick both sat silently with mouths gaping. Finally, Catherine worked up the courage to say something. "How long?"

"We've been married for about six months. We started dating last summer, when Nick was recovering from being buried alive. Soon we were engaged, and then married. Now we live in a house near my old townhouse."

"But the child? What about her?"

This time it was Sara who spoke up. "That's Delaney, my brother's daughter. Danny passed away recently, and his wife is having a hard time coping, so Gil and I offered to take care of Laney for a while. She is going back home on Saturday."

Catherine looked visibly relieved. The idea that Sara and Gil had been married for half of a decade and had children, right under her nose, had been rather unsettling.

"So, there aren't any little Grissoms?"

Sara and Gil exchanged glances. "There will be in about seven months" said Sara as she put a hand on her still flat stomach. It took less than a second for Catherine and Nick to process this piece of information, and when they did, Catherine shrieked so loudly that the whole restaurant stared at them.

"Just wait until I tell Warrick and Greg. Poor Greg- he'll be heartbroken. I knew it! I just knew it!" As Catherine babbled on and on, Grissom and Sara kissed their incognito marriage goodbye. It looked as though they would be the poster children of the entire lab.

A/N: To be continued…hopefully.


End file.
